Month: October 2010

Enjoying a good challenge is what life is all about. As if looking after our three children isn’t enough of a challenge we’ve taken up the helm as dog owners. Lucy, our Working Cocker Spaniel has been with us now for two whole days (two and a half if we include the sleeping she did with us on Saturday afternoon and the poo on the kitchen floor this morning).

So far, she seems to be settling in really well: She’s getting the hang of her name and responding (sometimes) to it when called. She is starting to understand the command no to some degree and we’ve also been teaching her wait as command because sometimes we don’t want her to sit down but we want her still like to remove her lead for example.

Wait is working somewhat, although trying to tell a twelve week old puppy to stand still is a problem in itself, so I’m sure this one will work better over time. We haven’t started with sit yet (or at least I haven’t) because we want to concentrate on the name and toilet training first Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Get those right and we’ll move on to something else.

At the moment, we seem to be having more success with using the rug in the lounge or the floor in the kitchen than the garden as intended, but we’ve got to give it time Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Something which I unfortunately am short of, being an impatient kind of person. She is on the other hand doing really well with night times and sleeping. Settling down in her bed when we go to bed at about midnight, she is sleeping through until about 7 AM and is managing to hold herself for the toilet until then. The only problem is that upon waking, she is so excited to see me or whoever else greets her, that some of the stored wee usually comes out Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Doh. Bladder control comes with age I guess.

I took her on her first public outing last night to Pets at Home to pick up a Pee Post. I was actually after the pheromone spray but they don’t stock it. She was a little angel in the car and hopefully she stays like it as we end up carting around the south of England visiting people quite often. She got out of the car with ease, however after that decided she’d rather be carried around the store. The smell of hundreds of other dogs was obviously a bit too much for her to take in, as she was shaking a bit to start with, but she came around to it after a few minutes.

It’s early days still, but I love her loads already. She is super cute and she seems so loving and affectionate to me, Nicky and the girls after just these two and a bit days – I’m looking forward to once we get some solid training into her, and we can enjoy her as a young puppy dog and the rest of her life, go out and do things and see places together.

In an angry come jealous state, my wife Nicky today upgraded her O2 contract and got herself a HTC HD7. My contract is due for upgrade at the end of October, so I have another week and a bit to wait before I had upgrade.

In my current agreement with O2, I have a very tidy deal going on thanks to my employment from Xerox which grants me 30% discount on the monthly line rental, however my sources on the O2 Customer Forums tell me that this deal doesn’t exist any longer, so I’ve set out to compare my current plan with some plans on O2, Vodafone and Orange which are of interest Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Interest being defined in this case by price and value for money, which is in turn determined by the inclusive allowance of each contract.

As you will see from the above PowerPoint WebApp slide, my current package weighs in at an 18 month overall cost of Ã‚Â£585, while if I upgrade to what O2 will recommend me in it’s place, the Smartphone 45, I will be spending a whopping Ã‚Â£810 instead, meanwhile Vodafone come out on-top with the Vodafone tariff at Ã‚Â£35 per month weighing in at a somewhat mild Ã‚Â£630 over 18 months.

Sure, I could save Ã‚Â£5 per month on all of these networks by switching to 24 months, but having to wait 18 months for the next iteration of phone is dire enough.

If Tesco Mobile started to sell Windows Phone 7 devices, I would probably jump over there to get a 12 month contract Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Something of a rarity these days.

About Richard J Green

Richard Green

Richard works as a Cloud Consultant for Fordway Solution where his primary focus is to help customers understand, adopt and develop with Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and System Center.

Richard Green is an IT Pro with over 15 years' of experience in all things Microsoft including System Center and Office 365. He has previously worked as a System Center consultant and as an internal solutions architect across many verticals.

Outside of work, he loves motorbikes and is part of the orange army, marshaling for NGRRC, British Superbikes and MotoGP. He is also an Assistant Cub Scout Leader.